


Cargo

by olliolli_oxenfree



Series: dapolyweek [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Circle of Magi, Gen, Kinloch Hold, The Gallows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-29
Updated: 2016-09-29
Packaged: 2018-08-18 14:14:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8164750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olliolli_oxenfree/pseuds/olliolli_oxenfree
Summary: Caedan Amell is taken to the Ferelden Circle.Now part one of DA Poly Week.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Can be read on Tumblr [here!](http://fleetingshadowdm.tumblr.com/post/143454260611)

He hasn’t set foot outside in five years. Not since he was dragged kicking, screaming, _begging_ to the Gallows. The docks are so shrouded in fog he can barely make out the shapes of the boats in port. Behind him Kirkwall rises, a mass of foreboding energy pressing down on him. When he had first been taken to the Circle, he would have given anything to see it again. To get lost in the maze of streets and alleys. To run home, for his mother to scoop him up in her arms and his father to allow him to read a tome in his study. To see Darktown, even, just for a chance to get away. Now, he never wants to set foot in the City of Chains again.

His hands are, both ironically yet not ironically enough, bound in front of him in wooden manacles. They’re a needless precaution. All either of his templar escorts need to control him is to cleanse the area of magic. What do they expect him to do? Break into the crates of lyrium? Probably. The bottles and their storage containers have been wrapped and rewrapped to resist water and salt. Each crate lifted by two men under the supervision of a third, and put in its own special compartment for transportation. Even his phylactery has been given better care than he has.

Finally, after three hours of standing still in the predawn fog, he is permitted to board. Around him, the sailors mutter darkly and cast him hostile glares. It’s possible the templars have told them. Right. Because the _first_ thing a storm mage would do on the open sea is start blindly shooting of bolts of lightning. He’s not _that_ clueless. He is shoved below deck, in with the barrels and chests of goods heading for a city he only knows because the shouting workers on the docks have not been discreet. _Amaranthine._ Try as he might, he can’t remember which country the city lies in, or if he’s even heard of it.

Seafare was, without a doubt, the worst way to travel. Cramped in with the templars and trading goods, it was all he could do to keep the contents of his stomach where they belonged. His escorts could at least take breaks. Thrice a day, one would dispel the magic that had built up, if any could, and stretch their legs above deck. Each had three breaks, and each one of the six times his magic was cleansed he would clench his jaw against the fresh waves of nausea. They were not going to have the satisfaction of making him clean his own sick.

Much as the sailors had detested him coming onto the boat, they had no problem with him being the last thing _off_ the boat. The lyrium was the first thing moved, treated with as much care here as it had been in Kirkwall. He was ushered above deck and onto the pier after the last of the trade crates had been safely unloaded. Another set of templars was waiting with the lyrium. They spoke briefly with his escort. One was to remain until the ship returned to the Free Marches, a guest of the Chantry. The other was to continue on to the Circle, where they would report for their new station. This was news, to him at least. The templar designated to continue with him clapped the other on the shoulder, and wished them a pleasant journey home.

Amaranthine was a port city with a dialect he couldn’t place. The Chantry shocked him in its modesty, tucked snugly into the walls of the city like a chapel in a Kirkwall estate. He saw the city and the building for all of two minutes before he was sat in a wagon cart and on his way through the countryside. Even the novelty of being _outside_ was wearing thin. It would be better if he could walk properly, but he didn’t dare test the leniency of the two new templars with one from the Gallows so near. They could at least do him the dignity of taking his manacles off.

He discovered the templar that came with him from Kirkwall had an interest in geography. The first night, a map was procured to explain the lay of the land. On the other side of the camp, under the watchful eye of the third templar, he picked out words like _Bannorn_ and _Calenhad_. The latter was infuriatingly familiar, but for the life of him he couldn’t place it. It did spark the glimmer of a plan in the back of his mind. The road they were traveling wove between the slopes of a hilly range. While wood was fairly impervious to lightning, it still burned.

On the fifth day, he saw the Circle. A giant spire of stone stretching endlessly towards the sky, in the middle of a lake. Kinloch Hold, one of the native templars called it. It didn’t matter; escape from such a place was impossible. When they approached the docks, this time he was the first one on the boat. Two templars boarded after him, one remaining behind to come across with the crates of lyrium. An hour on the lake got him as queasy as a week at sea. From the base, the tower was immense. Rising farther than his eye could see, just looking at it quickened his breath. The thought of going inside, somehow, seemed more final than the Gallows. He was marched in, a templar holding each shoulder.

A group of mages were chatting near the entrance, supervised by what could only be the Knight-Commander. Meredith, no matter what time of day or night, was always present at the arrival of a new mage. No reason the tower should be any different. His suspicions were confirmed when the templar that had joined them in Amaranthine bowed and addressed the man as Knight-Commander Greagoir. An odd thing the bow was, too, with hands crossed and balled on the shoulders. One of the gathered mages put an arm around the shoulder of an elf.

“Come, dear.”

“Yes, Wynne.”

Another mage came over, a welcoming smile on his face for the templars. The mage looked down at him, and the smile softened into something believable. “Welcome to you. I am the First Enchanter, Irving.”

The _First Enchanter_ greeted new mages? Orisino had never been granted such a liberty. As rigid as Meredith was in meeting all mages new to the Gallows, she was just as inflexible in making certain Orisino was never with her. He himself had only seen Orisino shortly after arriving in the Gallows because another apprentice had pointed the elf out to him. They had only met when Orisino had come to give him to his escort out of Kirkwall.

Irving motioned for the Kirkwall templar to undo his bindings. Another magic cleanse, and his hands were free. He was promptly sick over the templar’s boots. Irving chuckled sympathetically and drew him aside. A wash of healing magic settled his stomach. Irving drew him away, past the eyes of countless templars to the apprentice dorms. Purple robes were placed in his arms to replace the grey robes of the Gallows, and Irving left. He pulled on the robes of Kinloch Hold and the door opened. The elf he had seen earlier, an apprentice as well, entered followed by a boy. Both were roughly his age. The elf spoke, large eyes sizing him up.

“They’ve placed your phylactery in the basement. Irving said you were from Kirkwall.”

“Where is Kirkwall?”

“In the Free Marches.” Both gave him blank looks. “Where’s this?”

The elf answered. “Ferelden.”

He knew Ferelden. Before being taken to the Gallows, it had seemed further away and stranger than Rivain to the northeast.

“What’s your name?”

“Amell.”

The boy cackled. “What kind of name is that?”

“Mine.”

“Did the Chantry give it to you?”

He squinted at the boy. “It’s a family name.”

The elf blinked. “Why use your family name?”

“Everyone in the Gallows uses their family name.” Everyone who had one to use.

The elf nodded and indicated herself. “Then call me Surana. This is—”

The boy pushed Surana’s arm aside to introduce himself. “Jowan. Don’t know if I have a family name. Have to tell me your proper name, now.”

Did he remember his name? It had been so long since anyone had used it. His mother had screamed it, trying to reach him through the templars that had come to collect him. His father had held her back, whispering his name like a prayer to Andraste.

“Caedan.” Jowan grinned.


End file.
